Spring!

Spring is here, and I liiiiiiike :) Finally, after months and months of rain in Ireland, it is SO nice to feel the sun on my face! Given the state of my knee (wish me luck for the MRI on Tuesday :S), I am doing a lot of hanging out under the tree in the backyard - and I am not going to complain. hehe put my feet up in the air, a good book and all my drawing stuff next to me. Of course, I wish I'd been able to be in London this weekend to hang out with Valerie and Celine....hope they had fun today with Michou!! xoxo les filles :) Ce n'est que partie remise :):):)

Happy Birthday to me :)

A very very happy one :) Sweet sweet france, hanging out with my nephew and Troels... oh SO nice :) Took Nils to the poney club where he tried to show off more than all the kids there, and on Sunday we even got snow. Cuddling by the fire place and making a pile of people with Nils - quels amours :)

Happy Birthday Grand-ma :)

Unlikely that she'll read this post, but still wanted to share some pics of her birthday celebration :) 80 years old, we had much much to celebrate.

Celebrating the New Year, African style

Old friends, new friends, all together to start the New Year with African food, African dancing and yes oh yes, African cloths :) Something so warm about spending an evening with old old friends. Paris was beautiful too - the guys live in my favorite part of the city, right around the corner from Montmartre, and have the most beautiful view on the Sacre Coeur.

Sweet sweet year starting :)





1) Sarah, Celinette and I - sweet sweet high school friends of mine :); 2) Sarah and I with our lovely Michou; 3) Tourapreillememeketoa, le retour - Valerie and I reunited; 3) He he oh that African Dancing - my cousin Nathalie killed it! :); 4) Bieautiful view of Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur.

"Pomme de Rainette et Pomme d'Api"

.....as the song from my childhood would go :) Last weekeend I went home for my sister's house warming party -sorry you all, no pictures of my sister enjoying too much punch :)-, but though I'd share the few pics I do have from that weekend. My nephew and I went apple-picking and rock-skipping (well, for my nephew is was more like rock-plopping but he was trying so hard the poor thing :)). The sweetness of going back home and spend time on the little things with your family...there is nothing like it.

Sweet oh sweet French wedding :)

FELICITATIONS PAM ET MATT :)

Some of you may remember my blog post about Pam and Matt's Bachelor party last June -well this weekend I went back home to my hometown for their wedding. It was splendid. First for the sweetness of seing so many loved ones I had not seen in a long long time - Soazic for example had just arrived back for her year in Australia 2 days prior to the wedding. And just because it was simply splendid all around! The wedding ceremony started a 9:30 in the morning, and the celebration lasted in 7 am this Sunday morning. The food was delicious - we were eating from about 3 to 8 pm - usual for a French wedding though :) Games and songs and many surprises for the bride and groom. Oh And on top of that, before the dance started I had the opportunity to play a game of "petanque" - this fun fun ball game from southern France that I had not played in 10 years! And of course I played veru poorly - what not even that got over my excitment of actually being playing the game :D We danced until the weeeee hours of the day - oh how sore my legs are!!!! Unfortunately I missed "la rotie" (Another French tradition where the friends of the couple make this made up concotion of "food" - usually has a lot of chocolate, and other food items, but other non-food items can be added-that the newly weds have to eat in the wee hours of the morning the day after their wedding when all the friends go and wake them up...sounds a bit weird, but it is always a lot of fun)...it was sooooooo hard to leave this morning to catch my flight back to Dublin, when everybody was getting ready for the "post-wedding partying". I really wished I could have stayed home longer.....but I guess I can't really complain since I'll be going to Seattle tomorrow :)

More pics from the party

Yes, I, my eyes are sparkling quite a great deal.....I wish I could say it was because of the flash of the camera :) Mais c'est a cause de l'elixir d'amour et de ses framboises.....on ne dirait pas comme ca, mais c'est traitre, les framboise :D

Burrying the Bachelors' life

In France, when you have you bachelor/bachelorette party -often celebrate together these days-, we are quite serious about it: we burry the bachelors' life.....litterally :) Last night, we had a such a party for my friends Pamela and Matthieu, who are getting married. So, in addition to having the couple go on scavenger hunts dressed in silly costumes etc, one of the oldest traditions for bachelor parties is to fill out a coffin with bottles of wine: each person attending the party brings one bottle and usually writes a personal note on it and voila! Evrything goes in the coffin. Then, the coffin is burried in either the couple's backyard or sometimes that of their parents, and is only to be brought back up when the couple has its first child and shared with the people who originally came to the bachelor party, to celebrate the birth of the child :)

Of course, part of the fun is also getting the couple tp dig the whole - or rather, how to make sure that they have the hardest time making it and keeping it as is until they are ready to bring the coffin at the end of the night. Oh on Saturday we had plenty of fun putting all the dirt back when Pam and Matt were not looking :)

Was a blast and seriously I would not have missed this in the world! Can't wait until they have their first baby.....means everybody who was there is invited to digg up the coffin. Soazic, you missed out really ;)